part 1. The American adaptation of the European heritage: A variety of peoples bequeath legacies to the new nation -- Colonial conditions modify the old world heritage -- The Christian heritage -- The transmission of polite learning and of scientific interests -- The rise of the Enlightenment -- part 2. The growth of Americanism: The revolutionary shift in emphasis -- The expanding Enlightenment -- The conservative reaction -- part 3. Patrician leadership: Patrician direction of thought -- Nationalism challenges cosmopolitanism and regionalism -- The West challenges patrician leadership -- part 4. Democratic upheaval: New currents of equalitarian thought and practice -- The advance of science and technology -- The popularization of knowledge -- New goals for democracy -- The rising tide of patriotism and nationalism -- part 5. Triumph of nationalism in social and political thought: Cultural regionalism in the old South -- The thrust of the Civil War in intellectual life -- The nature of the new nationalism -- Business and the life of the mind -- part 6. The assertion of individualism in a corporate age of applied science: The delimitation of supernaturalism -- Evolutionary thought in a utilitarian society -- Professionalization and popularization of learning -- Formulas of protest and reform -- The conservative defense -- part 7. Optimism encounters diversion, criticism, and contraction: America recrosses the oceans -- Prosperity, disillusionment, criticism -- Crisis and new searches.